Temporal disease trajectories condensed from population-wide registry data covering 6.2 million patients

STEP BY STEP

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark have followed six million Danes for 15 years through patient and disease registers. Studies in the complex data landscape now enable researchers to pinpoint very busy routes for widespread diseases such as cancer, arthritis and diabetes. The findings have been published in Nature Communications and pave the way for more personalized medical treatment.

This is the first time that researchers have analysed big data relating to an entire country’s disease development. The new ground-breaking results are based on data from 6.2 million Danes who were followed for 14.9 years – using state-of-the-art systems biology, researchers have boiled down the massive amount of data to 1,171 so-called thoroughfares with central information on the course of diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, arthritis and cardiovascular disease. The researchers are, in other words, able to forecast whether you are driving on a risky highway to hell with an acute need for rerouting to improve your health.

Read full text article in Nature Communications

Authors: 

Anders Boeck Jensen
Pope L. Moseley
Tudor I. Oprea
Sabrina Gade Ellesøe
Robert Eriksson
Henriette Schmock
Peter Bjødstrup Jensen
Lars Juhl Jensen
Søren Brunak